UNEMPLOYMENT

Evening Star, Issue 21170, 2 August 1932, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT

WELFARE OF WOMEN Mrs A. Herbert, who is a member of the Dunedin Women's Unemployment Committee, reports that she lias been actively connected with unemployment amongst women and girls. The rooms that are at present functioning under the direction of tho committee as a place of part-time employment, and also for the supplying of meals, are now catering for fifty women weekly. According to the official registrar at the Y.W.C.A. approximately 190 women are out of work in Dunedin. For the last week in July twenty-nine women registered, and work was found for twenty-three, this indicating on paper that unemployment amongst women has abated somewhat in Dunedin. Mrs Herbert states, however, that she has reliable information that a considerable number of girls are out of employment who have not yet registered with the committee.

Owing to the limited fund supplied by the Unemployment Board, which is £SO per week, the committee is finding it extremely difficult to cater for the present registrations, and this can only be done by giving the girls a standdown period m each month. The committee has also the problem to face of unemployed women living on the outskirts of Dunedin. The meagre weekly allowance provided by the Unemployment Board, and the committee as a result cannot offer much help to the women who are out of work in the outlying districts, even if they are willing to register as unemployed and are desirous of entering the committee’s rooms in Dunedin. The 7s 6d that is paid weekly would be absorbed in train and bus fares.

The local Women’s Unemployment Committee has done a large amount of useful, humanitarian work, and it is agreed by the committee that there is an urgent need for much more to be done, especially for women in the outlying districts, and Mrs Herbert suggests that the best and most economical way out is for the Government to pay sustenance allowances where suitable work is not available. Mrs Herbert further states that only the fringe of unemployment as far as women workers are concerned has been touched, not only in Dunedin, but in other parts of New Zealand. When it is known that the women of Neiv_ Zealand pay in unemployment taxation at least twothirds more than is given to their less fortunate sisters, through the various women’s unemployment committees, it makes them think and wonder why the Government is so niggardly when it comes to the interests of uneinployed women.